


The Unfair Burden Children Bare

by GoddessofRoyalty



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, Grooming, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mentioned Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious
Language: Nederlands
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24179086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoddessofRoyalty/pseuds/GoddessofRoyalty
Summary: Straight up the fic where Anakin and Aayla are better friends and he tells her about Palpatine AND SHE TELLS AN ADULT (and then those adults come to the slightly wrong conclusion but at least they DO SOMETHING)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 268





	The Unfair Burden Children Bare

**Author's Note:**

> So firstly this is not the best way to handle something like this being revealed to you, but it is a way to handle it and… pretty accurate to how a lot of people do handle it. Just, trust me on that one. 
> 
> Secondly, I don’t know Aayla’s canon age, I’m putting her as a couple of years older than Anakin because that’s what I think she is but… I might be wrong.
> 
> Thirdly, this is all, as far as I’m aware, canon things Palpatine did to Anakin (just… the time lost was spent… doing shady sith things?), so yeah. 
> 
> Fourthly, it’s gets repetitive in terms of the same thing being said over and over again to different audiences, but I mean… that’s another that happens. 
> 
> Fifthly, despite the real life stuff I have to base it off still hope I represented it accurately as a narrative and got all the emotions right.
> 
> Warnings: Canon-grooming but everyone comes to the wrong conclusion about it.

“I don’t understand why my Master wouldn’t allow me into the bar with him. On at least two Inner Rim worlds I would be allowed to drink. And the one we went to didn’t have any age restrictions! But no! He said I couldn’t go in until I was older.”

Aayla’s Master said the place was dangerous, that it was safer for her to stay outside, as if she was some new Padawan only just out of the crèche instead of a 17 year old who was more than capable of taking care of herself.

“I don’t know. I mean I don’t get what the big deal is – I’ve been in bars, they aren’t that special but they aren’t that bad either,” Anakin said with a shrug. The two of them sitting shoulder to shoulder on his bed. 

“And when have you, Padawan Skywalker, ever been in a bar? I highly doubt Master Kenobi would be the kind to allow you in one even if you were of age.” She knew Master Kenobi, he was serious and a bit of a stickler for the rules. And while her Master swore up and down that Master Kenobi had been rebellious as any other as a teen any such rebellion had been clearly grown out of.

“No, not with Obi Wan,” Anakin corrected and then flashed a somewhat panicked look as if he realised what he had just said.

“When you were a child then?” A touchy subject she knew, and one she is normally happy to avoid. She knows little about what life as a slave in the Outer Rims would be like but figures from the holo-dramas that are set out there that bars would be a more common occurrence.

“No. I mean I could have and I tried more times than I probably should have but my mother would have never let me.”

“Then when?”

He avoids her gaze.

“Come on! You can tell me! I want to know.” She cannot help her curiosity. Most of the bars on Curoscant are pretty good at checking the ages of those going in them at the door – and Jedi Padawans more often than not get refused just because of a common misconception of how they are Knighted once of age. Maybe it had been on a mission? Even then surely his Master had kept a close eye on him.

“Okay fine, but you have to promise not to tell anyone.”

“Yes, of course, I promise. Now tell me.” The anticipation was killing her.

“I’m serious. Promise you won’t tell anyone. Not Obi Wan. Not Master Vos. Nobody.”

“Yes, yes, I promise!” Aayla honestly didn’t know what the big deal was. She had no want to dob Anakin in for managing to find his way into a bar. If anything she was jealous.

“Chancellor Palpatine takes me.”

Wait. What?

“Chancellor Palpatine. The Supreme Chancellor takes you to… bars?” It didn’t add up. None of it added it. Why the kriff would the Supreme Chancellor be taking a Jedi Padawan to bars?

“Yeah. Now remember you promised you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Why though?” Aayla couldn’t help but ask.

“I don’t really know. He just does. He sometimes buys me things as well. Like, wait-” Anakin gets up and goes digging into the draw next to his bed pulling out a piece of metal and Aayla knows come from a ship, “-this. I’ve yet to find out what to put in in though. I mean it’s not like I have my own ship to modify. Hopefully when I’m a knight.”

“You don’t think it’s a bit weird? The Supreme Chancellor doing something like that?”

“I guess? I don’t know.”

“Does it feel weird?” That’s supposed to be the thing right? If something feels weird you’re supposed to tell your Master. It’s their job to guide you and things that feel weird are things worth taking note of.

“No? Maybe? I don’t know. I mean most of the time it’s just kind of cool. I get to go to all these exclusive places with him. But sometimes…”

“Sometimes what?” She knew she probably shouldn’t push but she can’t help it. There is something about it that feels off to her now and so long as Anakin is still willing to talk about it she isn’t going to stop asking.

“I don’t know. Sometimes I swear I’ve only been there 15 minutes and it turns out it’s been an hour. I ask him about it but he tells me the conversation must have bored me and I forgot.”

“That’s… bad Anakin.” She doesn’t know how else to put it. Her Master may not let her into bars but he has more than informed her of all the drugs in the galaxy that can make people lose track of time. “Have you told your Master?”

“No!” Aayla startled at the sudden firmness of his voice. The sudden anger. “And you won’t either. You promised.”

Still, she isn’t one to be scared into submission. “Why haven’t you told him. If it’s no big deal-“

The speed in which Anakin deflates again is almost as scary as the speed which he fired up. “Because he’ll be mad at me. I just know it. He’ll tell me I did something wrong. Please, you can’t tell him. Promise me.”

“Alright. I promise.” Didn’t mean it sat any better in her gut.

* * *

“What’s up Padawan?” Master Vos asks her, gesturing with the knife he was cutting up the meat for the stew he was making for dinner with.

“Nothing. Just thinking.” She can’t get the conversation out of her head. What Anakin had said… it still didn’t sit right with her. None of it sat right with her but she had promised not to tell anyone and she wasn’t one to go back on her word.

“What about?”

She pauses. She had promised not to tell but she hadn’t promised not to run a hypothetical past her Master. “What would you do if I told you someone, someone important was taking me to bars and giving me gifts?”

“I’d cut their kriffing hand off that’s what I’d do.” The knife he is brandishing certainly puts credence to the threat. “Why?”

“It’s nothing.”

“If you say so,” Master Vos says although she can hear the doubt heavy in his voice.

Silence fills the air and Aayla know she has already pushed it too far. Has already revealed too much but she can’t help it. She needs some confirmation that her gut is right. “And what if I told you I was starting to lose track of time while I was with them? That hours are passing when I only though it minutes?”

The knife hits the cutting board with a solid sound, and her Master is looking more serious than she has ever seen him in her whole apprenticeship.

“What happened.”

“Nothing. I-“

“No. Something has happened to put you on this line of questioning. Please, as your Master, I need to know,” he says and she suddenly realises under the seriousness and anger there is fear. Honest and genuine fear, and Jedi are not supposed to feel like. Her Master rarely feels it from her experience.

This is serious.

For it to gain such a response it has to be serious.

She was right.

“Nothing happened to me, I swear.”

“Someone else then?”

She nods. Still not technically breaking her promise.

“Then who?”

“I promise not to tell.”

“Aayla, please. I know you don’t want to break the promise, and normally I’d stand by that. But this is serious, and sometimes we as Jedi have to make decision, have to do things that we normally shouldn’t do to protect others. Do you understand?” She nods. “So please, tell me.”

“It’s Anakin.” She actually covers her mouth after saying it. Feels terrible in breaking so easily but her Master is so serious. She can’t help but listen to him.

“Anakin?” Her Master sounds like the breath has been punched out of his lungs. Like he has taken a beating that he sometimes, rarely, suffers in missions. She watches him swallow harshly. “Do you know who with?”

Her hands drop slowly and she ducks her head in shame of betraying her friends trust. “Chancellor Palpatine.”

“Chancellor Palpa-? Right. Come on,” he says before gathering his cloak, and tossing hers to her. Aayla quickly wraps it around herself as she follows her Master out of their apartment and down the halls.

She has a feeling she knows where they are going.

She feels like she’s going to vomit.

“Quinlan?” Master Kenobi asks, sounding so confused when he greets them at the door and Aayla refuses to meet his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Where’s you Padawan?”

“Out. The Supreme Chancellor asked if he could see him before dinner. Honestly, normally he’s back by now.”

Aayla really feels like she’s going to vomit now.

“Right,” her Master says, hand suddenly a weight on her back as he guides her into Master Kenobi’s room. “You’re going to want to hear this.”

“Hear what?” Master Kenobi asks, but lets them into his apartment, giving his usual offer of tea that Aayla merely shakes her head at the offering to her. Not trusting her voice at the moment.

Her Master refuses as well, and soon enough she’s bundled onto the couch with Master Kenobi sitting opposite her and she has a feeling there isn’t any way out.

“Tell him,” Master Vos says and she shakes her head.

“I can’t. I promised.”

“Quin, what?” Master Kenobi says and Aayla has a feeling he’s coming to her rescue but her Master holds up his hand to stop him.

“Just trust me,” he says to Master Kenobi that earns him a momentarily irritated look which Aayla would laugh at if not for… well, everything else. Her Master then turns his attention onto her. “I know you promised, but this is important, and I’m pretty sure you know that as well. So please Aayla, I know you don’t want to but you have to tell him.”

Her Master is so serious and Anakin is with the Supreme Chancellor right now and what if he hurts him? What if he’s been hurting him all this time and no-one was protecting him because nobody knew? Wouldn’t a good friend sacrifice their friendship to protect the other? Or would a good friend stand by their promise, and not tell a soul?

On the other hand there’s no getting out now. No way to dodge or avoid the conversation. She may be a Jedi but she is still only a Padawan – surely they can’t expect her to keep secrets safe when faced with such odds?

“Anakin told me the Supreme Chancellor takes him out to bars. And buys him things.”

“And,” her Master prompts and she shuts her eyes and honestly feels like she’s going to cry from the stress of it all and she’s a Jedi _damn it_. She’s supposed to be better than this but Master Kenobi looks so white and so scared and what if Anakin is in danger?

“And he sometimes loses time when he’s visiting him. Like a _lot of_ time and he can’t remember what happened.”

Master Kenobi buckles. She watches as he folds in on himself, his elbows digging into his knees as he buries his face into his hands and she swears she hears a _sob_.

Master Vos rubs his hand along her back and tells her she did good, before going over to Master Kenobi and pulling him into a hug.

“Padawan, go make us some tea,” he tells her and she knows it’s just an excuse to get her out of the room. To let the two adults speak about it and she doesn’t want to go. It’s her friend that’s possibly in danger! She’s the one to tell them! A serious look from her Master has her scrambling to the kitchen and kettle, cursing it silently as the sound blocks out whatever conversation is happening in the other room.

She returns with two cups of tea. She doesn’t think she could swallow a single mouthful of it despite its apparent healing properties.

Master Kenobi’s eyes are red, and he rubs them again before thanking her for the tea. Holding it in his hands she wonders if he is going to be able to drink any of it either.

“We have to go to the Council,” Master Vos says and Aayla realises it means she’s probably going to have to explain again what happened.

“I- yes, we do,” Master Kenobi agrees. The tea still a silent weight in his hand and Aayla has never seen him to not drink his tea.

“Right now,” Master Vos says and at least Master Kenobi looks just as startled as her at it. “He’s the kriffin’ Supreme Chancellor Obi’s. We need to come up with a plan as to how we’re dealing with this now. Not later.”

“What about Anakin?”

“The Council’ll be able to help us figure out what to do when he gets back.”

Aayla wants to argue against it. Surely it can wait until the morning but Master Kenobi is nodding.

“You’re right.”

“I’ll go call a meeting. You rest and drink the tea,” he says to Master Kenobi before turning to Aayla. “And you don’t worry okay? We’ll handle this.”

It seems like an empty platitude. Especially with how clearly on edge they both are. How lost Master Kenobi is. But Aayla knows better than to argue right now. Knows the last thing they need is a Padawan acting up.

It’s barely fifteen minutes before she’s standing before the full Council. Her Master standing behind her, hands warm and firm on his shoulders . Master Kenobi is standing next to them, and she has to admit he’s managed to pull himself together for the most part, no longer looking like he had just been crying and instead something resembling the usual way he presents himself.

“You called an emergency meeting Knight Vos?” Master Windu says, sounding like his patience has worn thin. She figures there is probably little reason any of them can rationalise why such a meeting was called when none of them had been out on a mission.

“Yes I did,” her Master says, “a Padawan made an admission.”

Aayla doesn’t know what it is about the word that makes the whole Council suddenly turn serious and alert. Like they know how serious it is just from that fact alone.

“Whose Padawan it was?” Yoda asks.

“Mine,” Master Kenobi says, his voice empty and hollow.

“To whom this admission made?”

“Me,” Aayla says. She tries to stand tall and sound strong. It’s just the Jedi Council, it isn’t the first time she’s had to give a report to them and every other time she hasn’t struggled even if she had been justifying a decision she made on a mission.

“What did he tell you Padawan Secura?” Master Windu asks, sounding more kind than he has ever in his interactions with her.

She knows there is no point trying to maintain it a secret anymore. She has already broken her promise by telling her Master, by telling Master Kenobi. Still, it takes her a second before she can bring herself to say it again. “Padawan Skywalker told me that the Chancellor Palpatine has been taking him to bars, and buying him things, expensive things. He told me he the he was starting to lose track of time while he was with him, that he would think only 15 minutes had passed to find out it was an hour.”

She swears she can hear the collective drawing of breath in the room. The Force around her suddenly tense and strained.

“Thank you, Padawan,” Master Windu says giving her a small reassuring nod but she can see the strain in his eyes. “You are excused.”

Master Vos gently guides her out of the room, before bending down so he is at her height. “It’s okay now Aayla. We’ll take care of it, you don’t need to worry okay?”

His words ring so false to her. There is no reason for her not to worry – even if the Council will take care of it it’s still the Supreme Chancellor. She knows the Jedi Council is strong but stronger than him?

She doesn’t voice any of it. Knows that the fact is probably something the others are likely more than aware of. She just nods and watches her Master go back into the Council Chambers before collapsing against the wall and burring her face into her legs and letting the tears she’s been keeping buried go.

She just hopes she made the right decision.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is GoddoessofRoyalty, twitter is GoddessofRoyal


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